ICANN Announcements

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Final Task Force Report On Whois Services

16 March 2007

Final Task Force Report on Whois Services

The Whois Task Force completed its work and sent its Final Task Force Report on Whois Services to the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council on 12 March, 2007. The report concludes the task force phase of the GNSO policy development process (PDP) on Whois, and sets out the key findings of the Whois Task Force, since it was convened in February 2005 and began work on its terms of reference. The GNSO Council will now consider the Task Force Report and deliberate on making a policy recommendation to the ICANN Board.

Staff Notes on Potential Implementation Issues

To assist the GNSO in its deliberations, and to support the work of the community, the ICANN staff has prepared 'Staff Notes on Potential Implementation Issues.' This document details implementation questions and issues relating to the Task Force policy recommendation and its minority report — the 'Operational Point of Contact' (OPoC) proposal and the 'Special Circumstances' proposal -- and is intended to inform ongoing policy work on these issues in a constructive way.

Online Discussion Forum on Final Task Force Report

Submit comments to: whois-comments-2007@icann.org
View comments at http://forum.icann.org/lists/whois-comments-2007/

A forum has been set up to facilitate further discussion on Whois and the Final Task Force Report. This forum is not part of the formal policy development process, but has been created to allow ICANN stakeholders to continue to share and discuss their views on the output of the Whois Task Force and to inform the process as it moves forward at the GNSO Council level.

Next Steps

The GNSO Council will now begin consideration of the Task Force recommendations. The Council will hold public discussions on this topic during the ICANN Lisbon meetings, and will continue its work online and through conference calls thereafter (updates on Council Whois activities can be found at http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/). Following its deliberations, the GNSO Council may make a policy recommendation to the ICANN Board. Should the ICANN Board receive a recommendation from the GNSO Council, it must then consider whether to accept it.